William Shawn

Comment about late editor of "The New Yorker", William Shawn, after he died in his sleep on December 3, 1992. He died in his apartment on Fifth Avenue and 96th Streets, where he had lived with his wife, Cecille, since 1950, and where he had raised his children, sons Wallace and Allen, and his daughter Mary. His health had been frail in recent months, his soft voice had grown softer. Mr. Shawn became editor of "The New Yorker" on January 21, 1952 and was editor until February 13, 1987. He joined the magazine in 1933, eight years after the magazines conception, and his influence on it will remain for the duration. He was said to have been a creator of the magazine as much as Harold Ross was. Mr. Shawn disliked hyperbole. He preferred fact, checkable fact. No editor ever ruled a large and complex magazine as absolutely as he ruled this one, yet no editor ever imparted to so many writers and artists as powerful a sence of freedom and possibility. He was equally adept in fiction and non-fiction. The reporting under his influence was imbued with the narrative drive, the drama, and the character portraiture of good fiction. He had a profound and solemn respect for writing and an almost insatiable, childlike curiosity about nearly everything. The decades Mr. Shawn was at the magazine saw the likes of writers from A.J. Liebling, John Kersey, Truman Capote to name a few. Mr. Shawn was born on August 31, 1907 in Chicago. After two years at the University of Michigan, he dropped out and traveled everywhere from New Mexico to Paris before coming to New York. He was known for his formal courtly manner, but would relax and become off guard in the company of someone funny.